27th Week of Ordinary Time (Monday 2012)
Reflections on Galatians 1:6-12 / Luke 10:25-37
by Frank D.B. Savadera, SJ
One vocations promotions video I’ve been watching a
lot lately is that which features Jesuit Superior General Fr. Adolfo Nicolas, SJ saying something
like: The world is a marketplace. In it are a lot of voices selling a lot of
things and convincing us to buy what it offers.
Do we believe that we can allow the world to tell us who we are ... what
we need ... whom we must associate with.
If we find ourselves subscribing simply to what the outside world is
prescribing to us ... then easily ... I think we will find ourselves lost and at
a lost and losing heart. Why? Because the world can actually bring us far,
far and farther from an understanding of ourselves. God
desires that we enjoy the greater things.
The amazing thing however is: we often settle for thing that are of less value ... that which brings us far far
away from who and what God wishes us to be.
I think this is what Saint Paul is so bothered about
when he tells the people of Galatia: “I
am amazed that you are so quickly forsaking the one who called you by the grace
of Christ for a different gospel.” It is not that there is a different
gospel ... but I think this is about ... quickly and easily exchanging the
bigger TRUTH which is God and our relationship with him ... in exchange for
something far from who and what we are.
Are we settling for something less than what God has to offer? We ask: To
what other gospel (if there be anything else) are we listening?
A GREATER CONSCIOUSNESS OF OUR TENDENCY TO STRAY
AWAY FROM THE GREATER TRUTH ABOUT OURSELVES AND OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD ...
AND SETTLING FOR A LESSER AND MORE CONVENIENT TRUTH. In Chapter 3 of Saint Paul's letter to the Galatians, we read: "O stupid Galatians. Who has
bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as
crucified? I want to learn this only
from you: did you receive the spirit from works of the law or from faith in
what you heard? Are you so stupid?"
We cannot BUT be
continually FIRED UP in our desire to search for the GREATER TRUTH. I think this is what MAGIS means. WHAT IS THAT ... which is GREATER if not the
GREATEST TRUTH ... that which merits for us eternal LIFE with God? Jesus spoke of something not so new. This had been preached even during the time
of Moses: "You
shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with
all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself."
The Gospel ... of course, proceeds with a narrative
to show what a “neighbor” is ... and how it is that we can be a “good
neighbor.” And clearly ... we know who
among the three characters ... exemplified the real trait of a neighbor (not
the priest, not the Levi ... but amazingly ... the outsider (the
Samaritan). We can leave it at that.
What fascinates me however is how the two
commandments were so ordered. Even
before we talk about love for or of neighbor ... there is such a thing as LOVE
for and of God. We can so love a
neighbor the WRONG WAY. Is that
possible? A friend so wished to express
his/ her love for me ... by buying me a plane ticket to Hong Kong. But I don’t need a ticket to Hong Kong
because I already have a ticket to Hong Kong.
But my friend who wished to express his/ her love and concern for me ...
buys me a ticket to Hong Kong nevertheless.
Is that love and concern? Must we
accept that there is such a thing as a faulty way of loving?
What our Gospel
is teaching us perhaps is: Real love of neighbor
springs from the deep kind of love that we give to and experience with God ...
with all of hearts, minds and souls. We
have to experience that kind of love FIRST and FOREMOST to know how it is to
truly love others and be truly a NEIGHBOR.
Needless to say: love of any neighbor depends on how much we had given
ourselves the chance to love and be loved by God. Without this single criterion ... any form of
loving is suspect.
Called to a
greater consciousness of how we may forsake a BIGGER TRUTH for a more
convenient one and less eternal ... and more fleeting one.
We cannot help
be continually fired up to search for that greater and more lasting truth.
